Day 1- Mom and Dad arrive late on Saturday night but we all got up early on Sunday Morning and headed over to the Swap Meet. Mom and I moseyed around all of the crazy little stalls with jacked iphones, car stereo's, stuff that "fell off the truck" and I bought a huge chef's knife, a calculator, a replacement Pyrex baking dish (as mine seem to disappear) and 80 rolls of 100% recycled toilet paper. We'll never need toilet paper again- thank you Swap Meet. Meanwhile, James and Dad were looking over all the tools and found a keg tap. We had some ice cold water, a churro and some tasty trailmix and then headed over to Chinatown for lunch.
We sat down at one of our Vietnamese Phở noodle places and had a nice lunch. On the way over, in trying to find parking in Chinatown, which is always problematic, I saw that they were having some sort of street festival. It was Chinese New Year!! Everyone was selling tree blossoms and orchids left and right. We were in heaven! After lunch we walked through all the stalls and looked at all the beautiful flowers and got a taste of China with people bustling everywhere. The Chinese New Year is famous for firecrackers and red flowers and bamboo and there was certainly plenty! We wore Mom and Dad out but then dragged them over to Jason and Tanya's (our neighbors) house for the Superbowl! The superbowl is great here because it starts at 3pm instead of 6 so you aren't quite as exhausted as you'd normally be by the end of it and can still get to bed early! We had a great time playing with the neighborhood babies and watching the commercials. It was awesome- go Saints! 
Day 2- Monday was our day for Monterey! We started out around 9:30 and got there around lunchtime. We ate first on Fisherman's Wharf where the guys try to compete for your patronage by giving out clam chowder. You almost don't need to eat anywhere with the amount you end up "tasting." We sat at a nice place overlooking the water where we could see the ducks and seals playing in the harbor. We got a great pic of a pelican sitting on Mom's shoulder! After lunch we headed over to the aquarium where we were just in time for the sea otter feeding time- they kept the shrimp they were fed under their arms, saving it for later! They are so awesome! We walked around the Deep Sea exhibit and then saw the sea-horses and by then it was 4pm and the aquarium closes early on weekdays in the winter so we took a drive out to Point Pinos to see the waves at sunset and see if we could get a look at some whales passing by- no whales, but it was a gorgeous sunset :-) We had a long trek back to Oakland in the rain with Dad driving- he got us there in one piece but not without a few white hairs! We made a quick dinner and a beeline for the bed that day!
Day 3- Tuesday we got started with a hearty breakfast at Brown Sugar Cafe- helloooooo Chicken and Waffles!! YUM! We had a nice leisurely breakfast and then took Mom and Dad up, up and up to the overlook behind Berkeley where you can see the entire middle and northern bay with the Golden Gate bridge. It was pretty cool and a great clear day for it. We toured Berkeley- shopped in a few of the shops and then grabbed some lunch at the Whole Foods by our house and took it to Lake Merritt to eat on the water. It was a little chilly but felt good in the sun. We showed Mom and Dad all of our ducks that are overwintering and we had a lovely time. Then we headed over to what we admirably call the "Gross-Out" (Grocery Outlet) which may be our favorite place to shop, and introduced them to the joys of buying food at more than half the price. It was awesome... as usual. Then we dropped ourselves in our chairs, exhausted from another day. Doc hung out with Mom while we all rested! Wednesday and Friday were working days for me and James, so Mom and Dad headed to San Francisco and Healdsburg to visit their other California buddies Susan and Gary and their daughter Sarah and hubby Mark and grandbaby Daisy. We weren't too involved with that, but we heard they had an awesome time (not hard to do with that crew!)...
Day 5- Jelly Bellies, Wineries, and Castles- what a combo!
I created a plan for this day that I even mapped out- and it went pretty well. We started out around 10am (Dad almost pooped out, we had worn him out the previous days so much-but we got him into the car and I think he had fun!) Mom said that she wanted to go see the Jelly Belly factory and they have free tours, so we did it and it was pretty interesting. James and I tried some really gross jelly beans that had funky flavors like "barf" or "centipede" or "booger" WHAT A MISTAKE. We didn't expect them to really taste like that- all I have to say is- who volunteered for that project? I sure as hell wouldn't want to taste all those things multiple times to get it "just right." Gross. After that, we needed to get the taste out of our mouths, so thankfully they were giving out free samples of chocolate walnut turtles in their chocolate department. Yum. As an aside- apparently, Ronald Reagan loved jelly beans and especially Jelly Bellies, because they had probably 15 different larger-than-life "pictures" of him made with jelly beans throughout the factory and a whole exhibit case dedicated just to him.
Much more interesting than Ronald Reagan's jelly bean face was a back-up in the factory line- what a sight to see a zillion jelly beans fly everywhere across the floor- every kid's dream. It was awesome. We left with our little packet of jelly bellies that they give you for taking the tour and believe me, that was enough.
(yup, 100% jelly bean Ronald Reagan profile)
Much more interesting than Ronald Reagan's jelly bean face was a back-up in the factory line- what a sight to see a zillion jelly beans fly everywhere across the floor- every kid's dream. It was awesome. We left with our little packet of jelly bellies that they give you for taking the tour and believe me, that was enough.
Then we headed up to Napa to see about a Public Market that I thought was going to be like an old-fashioned market where they have a cheese shop that got good reviews. Well- it was like a new yuppie market and we just bought some bread and a $10 round of cheese and some cupcakes that we didn't end up eating until a few days later and weren't very good anyway. But the cheese was tasty and it kept us going until we reached our next destination. We headed up the Napa road to V. Sattui winery because some friends of ours said the picnic area was nice and the winery very pretty, so we stopped in there and Dad and I did a wine tasting and Mom got to try their special grape juice. We bought some grape juice and one of their wines and decided that it was lunch time and we needed some tasty local beef! We stopped at Taylor's Refresher- a great place we'd tried previously with Caitlin on another wine expedition. It used to be a drive-in. They had a big, enclosed, clear plastic tent up with picnic tables under it and it was oh-so-warm in there. It wasn't cold in Napa, but it wasn't really warm either, so it felt good while we ate our grilled cheeses and patty melts and burgers.
We then set out for the Frank Family Winery. We thought it would be a Mom and Pop place but it turns out that the "Frank Family" is this guy Richard Frank who is a billionaire movie producer and made a bunch of really famous movies and needed a tax shelter so bought a vineyard. The wine tasting was going to be $10 each for me and James but we got it for free thankfully because nothing stood out for us (James kept dumping his glass into the spittoon and freaking out the pourer guy). Mom played the "I don't drink, but I would love to buy one of your wine glasses with the Frank Family Winery logo" and they gave us both glasses for free! Woo! Go Franks! Then we headed over to the Castello di Amorosa because I keep hearing about it in all of my reading about Napa and Sonoma- a real-life-totally-authentic-stone-from-Italy Castle. But get this! They want $11 just to step in the place- your tasting is included but Mom doesn't drink- so we just took pics outside with the pet sheep and chickens they have and we moved on up to drive through Calistoga. Calistoga is an old spa town- it looks a bit frontier-ish because it really has always been centered around the hot springs- they have their own "ole faithful" geyser too and they've kept the place looking pretty un-yuppy. Its got a bunch of art studios and little shops and a few spas. There were some restaurants there too that Mom and Dad explored with Susan and Gary on Friday. By the end of the day, we were pooped and drove back the hour or so home, but what a beautiful drive! Day 6- James and I worked on Friday while Mom and Dad headed up to Healdsburg to visit Susan and Gary. James and I got done with work around 4pm and started the long rush-hour-traffic slog to Santa Rosa to meet them at our favorite restaurant Flavor. We had a lovely long meal there and talked and talked- it was as usual a great meal with great friends, plus we had them bring a piece of cake for mom's birthday. It couldn't have been a nicer time.
Day 7- Farmer's Markets, Fish Tanks, and Fun New Relatives
Saturday was our last busy day before Mom and Dad flew home. James had to take the Fish Tank out to a park early in the morning and stay for the day, so Mom and Dad and I had some breakfast and then headed out to the Lake Merritt Farmer's market. We hit up this awesome Belgian waffle truck to keep us from buying too much food! Mom bought a beautiful yellow orchid that we packed up in a box for her to take home- the orchids here are amazing right now... mom's is home in NY and still flowering. We tasted all the free tastes and bought some kettle corn and greens and tried the Afghani "Bolani" from the guys that just keep pushing samples on you like crack-dealers. Dad walked over to the bank while I walked over to Arizmendi to get pizza to take to feed James and all of us some lunch. We drove the rental convertible over to the park where James was working and we had a nice picnic lunch on the trunk and James showed them his "pride and joy." They packed up the tank and we packed up ourselves and headed home so Mom and Dad could get one last trip to Grocery Outlet for last minute souvenirs and pack before we went over to Mom's first cousin Debbie's house for dinner. Debbie and Steve live over in Atherton, near Palo Alto and Stanford so Mom and Dad got to cross another of the Bay Bridges and we wound through the beautiful neighborhoods to Debbie and Steve's gorgeous house! Steve works as a venture-capitalist and was involved in starting Travelocity and many other successful ventures. They have three teenage boys, three dogs and have lots of pictures of them and all of the cool places they have been in big photo montages around the house- exactly what I would do if I had a photographic eye and a big beautiful house! We had a wonderful dinner and caught up on all of the family news and learned more about each other. It was a great end to Mom and Dad's stay!
Sounds like everyone had a fantastic time!
ReplyDeleteOh, and don't try the jellybeans that are marked as "fart" flavored, either. ;)